Kristi Hannemann of Iowa throws her son, Kaden, up in the air at Love Park fountain in Philadelphia Friday as temperatures neared 100.

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Local media and state health officials reported multiple heat-related deaths. In North Carolina, a 2-year-old child in Burke County died after being left in a car. In Kansas, heat is suspected in the deaths of a 60-year-old man and a child. Three heat related deaths occurred in Virginia. And in Queens, N.Y., an 81-year-old man died from heat exposure.

Oven-like temperatures topping 100 will blast much of the Mississippi Valley, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, setting daily and some all-time heat records through Sunday, says Meteorologist Brian Korte of the National Weather Service. Columbia, S.C., reached 109 Friday, beating an all-time record of 107 last reached in August 2007.

By mid-week, the eastern portion of the country will cool a bit, but extreme heat will return to the Great Plains, Korte said.

In Indiana, where temperatures topped 100 this week, state health officials logged 46 heat-related complaints in one day, Thursday. The state averages 62 heat-related hospital visits per week in late June and early July, says Indiana State Health Commissioner Gregory Larkin.

"We encourage people who don't have air conditioning to retreat to public areas, libraries, shopping malls, swimming pools or other areas that are cool to allow them to protect themselves," Larkin says.

In Jackson, Miss., where temperatures reached 100 Friday, doctors have treated about twice the normal number of patients for heat-related symptoms so far this month, says Richard Summers, chairman of emergency medicine for the University of Mississippi Medical Center. One patient arrived at the emergency room with excessive blood pressure of 296 over 180 — normal is 120 over 80 — and was treated with intravenous cooling fluids.

"This is a hotter June than usual," Summers says. Even though people in the Deep South are accustomed to the heat, "We have seen numbers trending up."

People already ill with diabetes, heart disease and hypertension suffer more because the heat increases the severity of their conditions "and really makes it more likely that they will have trouble," he says.

The heat can reduce bodily fluid levels in people with such conditions, and cause their emergency room visits to triple or quadruple during a heat wave compared to 10 years ago, Summers says. The increase is probably related to an aging population that in Mississippi leads the nation in obesity and poverty, and often lacks access to air conditioning, he says.

While heat waves caused 70,000 excess deaths in France in 2003 and 50,000 excess deaths in Russia in 2010, longterm trends of heat related illness in the USA seem to be decreasing, says George Luber, a health scientist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health.

The decline is probably due to more people having access to air conditioning, and more communities are taking action to protect people from the heat, Luber says.

Some cities, such as Philadelphia, St. Louis and Chicago, have deputized block captains to identify elderly and house-bound people who are vulnerable, and bring them to cooling shelters. Others, like New York City, have air-conditioning giveaway programs, Luber says.

"It's much cheaper to give away a $400 air-conditioning unit rather than have a $10,000 emergency room visit or deal with the long-term cost of a stroke or heart attack," he says.

Courtney Mann, a pediatric emergency physician at WakeMed Hospitals and Health in Raleigh, N.C., says she saw only a few heat-related complaints Friday, despite a high of 106.

The public should know how to recognize the signs of heat exhaustion, a precursor to potentially deadly heat stroke, Mann says.

Early signs include mild dizziness, nausea, headache, muscle cramping, and fatigue. Such symptoms should be treated by drinking cooling fluids or sports drinks, and immersing in cool baths, air conditioning or mists.

Anybody exhibiting confusion with a temperature of 104 after external heat exposure should get emergency treatment in a hospital, Mann says. "They can die from heat stroke," she says.

Children and the elderly are physiologically most vulnerable, but according to statistics provided by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the great majority of 75 patients reporting heat-related symptoms in the past two weeks were in the 25-to-64 age range.

Mann says people working or exercising outdoors should limit activity to early morning or late evening and take multiple breaks.

"The most effective way to get rid of heat is through evaporation," she says.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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